Heartland Feels The Heat Over Anti-Science Climate Change Strategy

The Heartland Institute yesterday lashed out at the blogosphere for reporting on the contents of leaked documents that appeared on DeSmogBlog late in the night of February 14. It was material that, if legit, implies Heartland is guilty of spreading dangerous disinformation simply to make a buck (something it has long accused climate scientists of doing).

Heartland, a nominally Libertarian “think tank”, is one of the loudest voices in the climate-change denial choir, yet its prepared statement contained, among threats and hedged denial, this appeal to the better angels of our nature:

“…honest disagreement should never be used to justify the criminal acts and fraud that occurred in the past 24 hours,” the statement said. “As a matter of common decency and journalistic ethics, we ask everyone in the climate change debate to sit back and think about what just happened.”

Yes, let’s think of what just happened – and why stop 24 hours ago (or, more accurately, 48 hours ago at this point)? Why not go back a decade or even two? Or a century? Or longer?

Let’s think of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which aggregates research from thousands of scientists and then summarizes it in conservative assessment reports that have been vetted hundreds of times over before being released to the public.

Let’s think of the people who attack the IPCC – people who have no qualms about pulling isolated sentences out of early drafts of thousand-page documents and then using them to try and discredit an entire body of research.

Let’s think of climate scientists – geeky types who, for the most part, grew up with a sense of wonder at the world around them, devoted their lives to learning, and now spend their time modeling clouds and currents or digging into ice sheets.

Let’s think of the community of climate science – which spent the last century modeling the skies and the seas as early generations grew old and died and subsequent generations carried on, tested the theories, discarded the ones that didn’t hold up, and kept the ones that did.

Let’s think of how the notion emerged that man’s activities were first going to alter the atmosphere, then might be altering the atmosphere, and – finally – were almost certainly altering the atmosphere.

Let’s think of how this evidence slowly began to mount across the scientific community, how it came into focus from data points across the globe, from ice sheets and tree rings to physical measurements.

Let’s think of how scientists – as is their wont – questioned this evidence, attacked it – “honestly disagreed” with it – until they had no choice but to acknowledge that their worst fears were, in fact, coming true.

Let’s think of how they came to realize that our current practices were bringing us to a cliff that will kill our crops, dry our prairies, and destroy our economy. Let’s think of the subsistence farmers in Kenya who are currently suffering a drought that Arizonans can’t even comprehend, or the indigenous tribes of the Amazon who will suffer under climate change – or the mass migrations that will threaten our national security.

Let’s think of the absurd belief that a global community of highly-educated scientists would collude to create a false body of knowledge just so they can make a buck.

Let’s think of the military, which is already taking steps to protect us from the consequences of our own apathy.

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Are you talking about the same scientists who need the prodding of FOIA litigation to release their code and data to other scientists , information needed for replication of study results — the essence of the scientific process?

Are these the scientists who, with a wink and nod, approved the infamous “hockey stick,” which when statistically scrutinized fell harder than Building 7 on 9/11? The IPCC quietly dropped any reference to the hockey stick in all subsequent reports.

Are these the same scientists who conduct their research by “consensus” rather than by a rigorous scientific process not influenced by politics and the lucre of overly-generous government and foundation grants?

Are these the scientists who refuse to debate any element of the issue in public forum, claiming that no debate is necessary because “the science has been settled.”

No, organizations like The Heartland Institute are needed to present even the modicum of dissent the public needs to make an informed decision on an issue which can have considerable financial costs to them. Partisans like Al Gore and George Soros (and their paid accomplices) should not have the only word on the subject.

3. Consensus? Consensus is what results from rigorous scientific process.

4. Lucrative? Scientists don’t get rich on grants they have to spend the money on research and equipment and expenses.

5. Debate? Science is actually not so much about debate as what the data indicates.

The Heartland Institute has proven unable and generally incapable of providing even a modicum of reasonability in the climate debate when it’s position is weighed against science. What you are saying is that we should place foolishness above evidence. That’s a pretty liberal stand.

“3. Consensus? Consensus is what results from rigorous scientific process.”

That is total and utter nonsense. “Consensus” is irrelevant in science. What matters if reproducibility, explicability, and mathematical correctness. If you can’t reproduce or derive a particular result yourself, your opinion about the veracity of that result is worthless, and most of the people who are supposedly part of that “consensus” clearly lack the training or expertise to do so.

If consensus settled things, we wouldn’t have quantum mechanics or relativity, because the overwhelming majority of physicists used to have a consensus that physics worked entirely differently.

What is interesting about your comment is that you misunderstand what ‘rigorous scientific process’ means. It means precisely what you said. So your post seems confused. Consensus comes from what results from “reproducibility, explicability, and mathematical correctness”

1)The IPCC is like AG Holder, who sends Congressional investigators thousands of documents about “Fast & Furious,” but withholds all pertinent info and claims that he has been totally cooperative with requests for information. The IPCC continues to restrict access to some of their most pertinent information. Read about Steve McIntyre’s latest experience with the IPCC: http://climateaudit.org/2012/01/26/another-ipcc-demand-for-secrecy/#more-15485 2) The original Mann hockey stick has, indeed, been replaced. You can call the replacement a “hockey stick” but it has been broken upward at the handle and flattened at the blade end. Recent data, continual statistical scrutiny and more sophisticated models will certainly flatten the blade in the next IPCC Report. 3) The results of rigorous scientific process is scientific knowledge. Consensus is too amorphous of a term to be tested. It can be influenced by politics, money, philosophy and, occasionally, the facts. 4) No one knows exactly how much is spent on climate change research annually, however, the GAO ( http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-317 ) found that the federal government allocated $8.8 billion to climate change activities in 2010. Additionally, each state funds research. Foundations give more. And many countries add to the pot. Someone, somewhere is getting rich! 5) Debate is an excellent tool in which to include the public in the process. After all, they are being asked to pay the bill. They should know the wheres and whys (and whethers) about the large amount of resources they are being asked to contribute to “The Cause.”

Actually, kj77nw, the consensus on quantum mechanics and relativity is fairly clear.

I think that what you’re trying to say is that the scientific community was initially skeptical of both because the ideas were new and untested.

That’s true, but the community came around, and it came around by subjecting the ideas to skeptical inquiry. They withstood that inquiry, and are now the consensus view.

Likewise, there was a time when the climate-change theory was new and untested — a time that spans more than 100 years. During that time, when evidence was foggy, it made sense to be “skeptical”. But as evidence mounted to the point of becoming overwhelming, it ceased making sense. Today, if you deny the existence man-made climate-change, you are not being skeptical of a new and untested theory — rather, you are denying the existence of overwhelming evidence.

1. Comparing ‘Fast & Furious’ with the IPCC is a non sequitur. The reason for secrecy in the IPCC process is increase the integrity of the process and not allow immature information that is not fully vetted to get out into a blogosphere that will say see, see, this information is not even fully vetted yet.

2. The original Hockey stick still stands as well though but within the constraints of its own study parameters. The other hockey sticks generally show the same pattern though. Stephen McIntyre proved it was wrong but only by about 3 hundredths of a degree and his correct in was found after review not be statistically insignificant and scientifically unsound in context.

3. Consensus by definition means general agreement. The data is clear, we are warming and we have increased the radiative forcing. Also, it’s not the consensus you test, it’s the evidence and the physics. The testable hypothesis that were raised in the 50′s through the 70′s (some as early as the 1890′s and 1920′s) have not proven true.

4. First, I’m not saying that scientists don’t like to get research grants, they do. Otherwise they would not apply for them. And there is always the jump on the bandwagon reality of hey, there’s gold in them thar hills, let’s go get some. That said, the great majority of scientists that receive monies for research, half often goes to institutional admin, and with what’s left, the scientist in charge needs to pay for supplies, travel and the research. What most people don’t know though is that often , the money for the grant is deducted form their salaries. The only extra money they make is from any overtime they put in. So if your saying they should not make any money for the extra work they do, as capitalist, I have to disagree.

5. A somewhat fair point, but keep in mind the facts as known and the relative confidence intervals are not debatable; but if they want to know the wheres and whys (and whethers) about the large amount of resources they are being asked to contribute then they need to learn the science, and not form the blogosphere, from the scientific papers and the consensus conclusion that have been reached.